


Fall

by starlordsbdff



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, I must say that Moriarty and Mary are only shown in the background, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Mental Institutions, Teenlock, There will also be a little bit of Mystrade, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1769761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlordsbdff/pseuds/starlordsbdff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TRIGGER WARNING. Sherlock and John meet as roommates in a mental hospital. This is a story about what happens there and how their relationship grows among many other BBC Sherlock characters. Teenlock and Johnlock. Special thanks to tumblr user ifyouvegotmybackillgoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Admission

It was as if a fog had passed over me that cold December night. One minute, I had a gun in my hand. The next, someone dove on top of me, prying the gun from my fingers. In those next few hours, I could only remember being put in an uncomfortable hospital bed, which killed me more than the gun ever could. Through the blinding white light, I could barely make out a strange lady, a social worker, or so it seemed.

 

“So your name is John Watson?” she inquired.

“Yes” I replied.

“And how old are you?”

“16. Why are you asking me all these questions? You obviously have the information in front of you ”

“To see how you are responding to this stressful event.” That social worker was totally bullshitting me.  She was sitting close to where my bed was and I was starting to become suspicious. I look down to see what she is writing: has trust issues.

“I have trust issues?”

“Well, you just read my notes upside down.“ Her neutrality was absolutely awe inspiring and irritating all at once. She tilted her notes up so that I couldn’t see them. “How long have you been suicidal?”

“Um, three months.”

“And how did you feel during your attempt?”

“Like I was in a haze and was just an empty vessel. I felt like a cell conscious of its condition of becoming cancerous. I felt like it was necessary.” I stammered. Those words felt so strange coming from my mouth, and I was afraid to let go of them.

 

“John, I am recommending that you receive inpatient treatment at our hospital. You seemed to have come at the right time because there is only one more male bed available in the short term unit for adolescents.”

“How long is short term?” I wondered.

“It could be between five days and an entire month,” she remarked while gathering her things. “Good night and good luck.”

With that last remark, she gave me a small glance of sympathy and left. My mind started to race. I, John Watson, a teenager who was only slightly off the mark of the correct level of normalcy, was being admitted to a loony bin? Sure, I did have my problems: my sister had just came out as a lesbian, my family had issues financially, my parents were having problems with their marriage and that I felt depressed. I could not bear to tell my parents, let alone anyone else, that I felt that way. Therapy and medicine were very expensive and time consuming. They would start to worry about me, and this would be a burden that I could not have born. I felt like I had to protect them.

 

Within the next hour, a nurse and a police officer wheeled me to the psychiatric wing. They wrapped me with warm blankets because it was a bloody cold night and they had to maneuver around the snow. As I was wheeled into the actual mental hospital building, I was pretty shocked that it was happening. It felt as if I was imagining it from my death bed or in a vision or something not real. Then, finally, they unlocked the door to the unit. There was only one hall to it with a nurses’ station in the middle.There were many doors along each hallway. Some were bedrooms, others rooms where our activities happened, and two on either side of the nurses’ station were exits.Those who escorted me departed and I was lead once more to a room in which my dad was already sitting. It looked like a conference room, except with dingy hospital tile on the floor.

Thus began the lengthy process of checking in. I was interrogated for the next hour and a half. I swear that the nurse added 15 minutes to it since I had a such hard time understanding her thick African accent. She asked me questions about my depression and who I was and my circumstances. I began to tire, for now it was late at night, but one question stood out to me in particular.

“What is your sexual orientation?”

My mind blanked out on this question. Ever since my sister came out, it kind of spurred these thoughts like: What if I’m not straight either? I have never consciously been attracted to a guy before. If I am… gay (or any other orientation for that matter), what will my parents think? Does some of my depression come from this?

“Um, I don’t know”

She looked at me for a second and said, “That’s okay. We just ask.”

After the interrogation and a body check, a nurse took me to my room. I remember that he and the other nurses/personnel were bickering about who should take me. As we walked down that hall together, I wondered why they asked this question. It is very personal after all. Then, I saw the door. A nametag was on the right of the frame. Sherlock Holmes was the name. Damn, I thought, with a name like that, you have to be screwed up. The nurse seemed to struggle with his keys as he opened the door. In this room, there were two beds, two dressers, a window, and a desk, but the part that I laid my eyes on first was a silhouette. It was in a fetal position facing the wall. Despite his position, he still looked tall and his curls were apparent.

“Piss off Mike,” came from the dark silhouette with a voice to match.

“Jesus, stop swearing Sherlock,” He then motioned for me to walk in.

“Guess what I deduce. You are a twat. Thanks for the new roommate.” Spoke him, the epitome of sarcasm and arrogance. With this, I started to fumble with my sheets in a sort of twitching manner despite aching for my bed.

“His name is John, by the way,” remarked the nurse, who promptly shut the door, giving me another sympathetic look. Damn, I thought, if get one more sympathetic look, I will punch a wall.

“Um, Hello”

“Turn on the light that is closest to the ground,” He grumbled.

“Well, who pissed in your cheerios?” I snapped while finding the switch. He then oriented his body towards me.

“Suicide, like most of the others, only slightly less boring.”

“Excuse me.”

“You have entered this hospital because you tried to commit suicide, mostly because of events that have happened in your personal life.”

“How the-“

“Your demeanor, the way you carry yourself how you handled your sheets, and the bags under your eyes et cetera. You have all the dead giveaways of someone who has depression with some anxiety. You are shocked that you are here and are worried about something. I say your personal life because your skin and eyes don’t show that, so personal life must be the reason.” A slight smile crept up on his face. I predicted then that he would grow up to become one of those detective type people.

“Now, let me return the question to you since, unlike you, I am not a psychic. How did you end up here?”

“One, I am not a bloody psychic. I don’t guess like they do. Two, I’m not telling you.”

“Why not? We will be rooming together for God knows how long and why would I have a single reason to tell anyone outside this place?”

“Fine, Drugs, which drove me to a suicide attempt.”

“Hey, you said that people in here that tried suicide are boring. What makes them any different from you?”

“Their minds are so much more placid than mine. My mind runs as fast as a sports car whereas theirs moves as slow as a bicycle. ” I roll my eyes at this. Pretentious bastard. This comment spurred a silence that lasted for a few minutes. It felt wrong, like there was a barrier between us that should not exist.

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“What exactly happens here?”

“It’s really boring and repetitive, just therapeutic activities, all day every day. Welcome to the sovereign nation of the cage.”

Lovely, I thought. Just. So. Fucking. Lovely.

“Is the food here bad?”

“Incredibly. One patient here had a panic attack when he first saw the food, but he is a complete idiot. He lowers the IQ of the whole unit just by breathing in it.”

“What the fuck?” I said, trying to keep my voice down.

“I know.”

“What is his name?”

“Anderson,” Sherlock spat out. “Philip Anderson. He hates me and I hate him.”

There was another pause. Words were escaping me, escaping the anxiety and intimidation that I was feeling. I did not want to anger Sherlock Holmes.

“Good night Sherlock”

No response.

In that moment, I realized that there was something about Sherlock that blocked me from hating him. I think that at the beginning, I had sensed his good side. Even though it was hidden behind layers of steel and logic, I could feel it in my whole being, which kept me wondering who he really was.


	2. Day 1

Another member of staff was stuck waking us up this morning. Sherlock stood up wrapped in his sheet after she left. I chucked a little.

 “Good morning?

“To you too, John Watson,” he replied with a small grin.

 “Um, do you have any pants on?”

 “No, I wasn’t expecting you to be here. I told them that I am gay just to not have a roommate, but apparently that did not work.”

  “O, I was wondering about that question,” I said and then came a small silence,”Were you really lying? Don’t get me wrong, I am okay with you being gay or not gay. Whatever.”

  “It is not my area.”

I left him to see what the unit was really like. One nurse told me to wash up, so she unlocked the bathroom for me. They gave me all I needed to get it done. I brushed furiously with chalky toothpaste on my toothbrush, which I then broke. Goddammit. I looked up in the mirror. My blonde bedhead and shadowy blue eyes, which had dark circles to frame them, looked like another creature, maybe even a monster.  How do I always fuck up my life?

I was additionally pointed to the day room on the side of the unit closest to my room after I finished. There, my vitals were taken. The group there greeted me and asked me a few questions, particularly about Sherlock. There was this one girl; Sally was her name I think. She had a particular hatred for Sherlock.

“So you are his roommate? How the fuck did he get a roommate?” she hissed.

“There was only one bed left here so-

“Sherlock, he is such a freak, and that is coming from a person in a psych ward. Most of the staff hate him too.”

“I’m not quite sure. I think I want to form my own opinion.”

“Suit yourself, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you about his psychopathic nature.”

“High functioning sociopath,” he corrected as he walked into the room ”Do your research.” Sally rolled her eyes at this.

The food cart finally came. Since I was not at the hospital the day before, I did not get to order my food: soggy scrambled eggs, sausages that looked like they were made from an animal that I never heard of and fruit. I could barely touch it. At least there was a lively conversation with people who were friendlier than Sally. They talked about who was getting discharged that day and the good and bad of the staff. Sherlock detached his chair from the camaraderie and sat in silence while he ate fucking cheerios which, in fact, nobody pissed in.

Then, there was a transition from breakfast to the morning meeting. Once everyone was settled in their plastic chairs, each person was asked what their face was (what they were feeling), how s/he felt on a scale of 1-10, whether that person felt like hurting themselves or others, and finally a goal for the day. As each person went, I had a better idea of who was there and what they were like, especially my roommate.

“Bored, 5, no, not to feel bored,” Sherlock said with a monotonous tone and crossed arms.

“Can you think of a different goal today?” said one of the irritated staff members.

“Well, I still have not accomplished my goal yet, so why move on?”

“Sherlock.”

“Fine, I will strive to be more intellectually stimulated,” finishing his sentence with a look I like to call “the glare of death”.

A few more people went until the last person, me.

“Um Confused I guess, 6, no, Get accustomed to the life here.”

 “Good goal John. I hope you accomplish it,” encouraged the same staff member that scolded Sherlock.

 The last part of this group was staff introductions and level changes. The level system went like this: the first level, green, is for those who have just been admitted or have been punished by a level drop.  You would have to be on it for a day and complete a lot of paperwork to move up to the next level, blue. On this level, you can step off unit under supervision. To move up, you could be on it for up to three days and complete another sheet. Purple, the final level, allows for vending machine visits (provided that you have money) and meals in the cafeteria for lunch and dinner. Only a few had level changes and none of them were Sherlock because he was in the middle of being on blue.

Next, the sixteen of us had to split in half for school and another activity based on what group you were put in. The groups rotated every hour for school. In this case, I had the “school” activity first and it was a joke. That day, we just answered questions and right answers would earn candy, which was probably more useful for those who had been in the unit longer. I swear that I heard the sound of drums from outside the unit. Sally and this guy called Philip were in my group. Sally, of course, seemed adamant on hating Sherlock. I guess I see why, but she cannot and could not see through the hard shells of Sherlock Holmes. Philip, however, was just angry at Sherlock, At the same time, Philip admired him and even stood up for him on occasion. Sherlock must have known.

My new psychiatrist pulled me aside during the group. She listened to what I had to say about my depression and its past. She then gave me a medication that I was to take that night.

Our next activity was art, which was in the same room. Our time was dedicated to collages based on what we liked or who we thought we were. I kept flipping and flipping through the pages of magazines to find a glimpse of myself, but the paper that was wound together seemed to be a desert that I could not keep my eyes on for more than ten minutes. I could only pick out a picture of London and a picture of a family. I must admit that I was embarrassed when the art therapist cooed me into sharing my “masterpiece”.

Our next group would be one that rotated every day. That day it was “spirituality”. In this group we discussed what we believed about the world and building a belief system. For that one hour, they just talked about people and whether they were good or not. I zoned out during this group because I was a cynic and thought that a lot of it was so fucking fake.

I felt thankful to be out of that room for lunch. Another disgusting meal was handed to me: quiche and cooked squash. There was another conversation at lunch, which I found hard to comment in

We got a break from all the group activities after lunch. All the patients had to stay in their rooms unless they were with a staff member. This meant more quality time with Sherlock.

“Did you hear that noise while you were in group?”

“What noise?”

“I was in school while I heard the sound of drums. Do you know why?”

“Oh, that was me. I had music. I banged a bit too hard on the drums and got yelled at”

“They have drums in the music room? That’s cool.”

Pause.

“Just out of curiosity, do you have any friends?”

“Not really, unless you count Redbeard, my dog, and a skull that I talk to.”

“Where the hell did that skull come from?”

“My dead brother.”

“Well that is morbid yeah?”

“No, I find it a comfort to talk to him. He was a lot less annoying than my other family members and was not vacant like most everyone else still is. It’s too bad that they would not let me have it here.”

He went back to reading one of his massive books. I was starting to become surprised with how much I could even talk to Sherlock. He hardly ever insulted me. This confused me.

After that break came Chemical Dependence group, a group in which those who have been on drugs a lot or drank a lot talked about how to deal with issues that come with those activities. I was excused from that group, but Sherlock was not. I got the room to myself and started to work on all those worksheets that came with my level change since I was not busy with anything else. After I finished, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I had not felt in a while. It seemed so endless, but I actually had the concentration to finish.

We got tea after CD was over. Everyone rushed to where the cart was. We also got a snack along with the tea. I was one of the lucky ones who got pudding, for others got crappy biscuits, fruit and/or cereal bars. It was heavenly compared to the shit that poisoned my taste buds. All the patients then congealed in one of the day rooms after tea/snack was over. I noticed Sherlock. He looked out the window and appeared to be distant. We all had to split again, except this time, the groups were permanent. They were the groups that we talked to a social worker in. In my group, Sherlock and Philip were present, which made me wonder how they did not break out into what could be full out war. Beside us three, the other four were girls that I was not very familiar with. First, each person had to state how they were feeling, why and if they had any concerns. The topic we talked about today was sharing feelings.

“First, why is it so important that we share our feelings?” said Ella.

“I guess we need to because our emotions are too much for us to handle”

“Sharing feelings helps in building relationships,” said one

“To add to what she just said, it builds trust,” added another. I could hardly keep track of who was saying what of the patients. I felt so distant, mostly because it just felt like bullshit spurted to convince the social worker that we were improving.

“How can we share our emotions effectively?” encouraged Ella.

“Well, I have found that just holding back what you feel and then lose it when you can’t deal with hiding your feelings anymore is not a good way to go about it,” shared Philip. He must have had anger issues of some sort.

“Yeah, just be calm and say only what you feel. Like, if you just start accusing someone of doing something, they will react badly to it.”

“How can we make ourselves more comfortable in sharing our feelings? Can anyone share how they do this?” said Ella.

“I have learned to get out my feelings through painting before I share them with anyone else.”

“Or do anything else creative for that matter.”

“Maybe the other person can go first in sharing their emotions.”

Some of the others started to tell stories about times when they shared their emotions and it got off topic a little bit. I had let my mind wander during this time. How could I get my emotions out of my being? I wasn’t ready to go and just pour to my family or any other person, but I needed to get what I was feeling out. Then, I thought that I could journal. I had heard others talk about journaling there and how they were able to. I knew what I had to do.

After Ella closed the group, I asked her if I could have a journal. She gladly let me.

Then, I opened the marble covered journal in a day room. It was daunting at first, but then I started. I wrote about my family, its issues, my depression, my lengthy admission, the hospital and Sherlock all on surface level. Writing down all these thoughts and facts was definitely freeing. My pencil felt like a huge jackhammer against the dam that held my emotions back.

My writing was interrupted by the afternoon meeting. At this time, each of the patients were asked if we wanted to hurt ourselves or others, if we completed our goal and whether the staff helped us to reach our goal. Most of us did reach our goal. Sherlock, of course, did not. There was a space for announcement and night staff introductions.

The time after the meeting was set aside for time outside, but the weather was shit because it was still winter. We were freed to do whatever we pleased on unit. Sherlock disappeared as the ping pong table appeared. I sat by and watched for a while, but some of the guys pulled me in. I first played an Indian guy and later a girl with curly blue hair. Both matches were ones that I won. The third match, however, was against Philip. He had gone up against some of the other guys and cause a shit storm if he lost. Philip would convince his opponent that s/he was wrong and that he actually won. It was just too much, so I let him win. No one blamed me.

I tired of the games of ping pong, so I moved to my room. As I walked there, I heard the sound of a Violin. My pace quickened as I seeked out the source of the noise. It was Sherlock. He was so in tune with his instrument that he did not notice me until he stopped. I loved how he looked while he played and all the music that he played.

“Damn,” I blurted with wide eyes.

“I assuming that my playing the violin did not bother you?”

“Not at all” “It was beautiful. How did you get permission to even have it here?”

“Playing helps me think, so I asked for the accommodation from our social worker.”

We just stared at each other for a second. His eyes seemed to tear through my soul, to look for something unbeknownst to me.

“You don’t have to stop playing just because I’m here. I love the music that you were just making,” I muttered

Then, he started to play again. I had let myself get lost in it. The notes felt like the only thing that made sense there.

Dinner then came soon enough and Sherlock had to return his violin. It was not pleasant: “steak”, gross asparagus, and mash potatoes with gelatinous gravy. How did the cafeteria fuck up meals to this degree? There was still plenty of conversation that came along with the meal, which speed it up.

As the time spent on eating left, I was also then left behind when everyone else went to the gym since I was the only one on green. After I got my meds, I stayed in my room, mostly because it was awkward sitting in the day room with just the staff about. There was also a smaller reason, to see if I could find more about who Sherlock is. Sherlock had stacks of books on his dresser. Many were about crime, others about chemistry. He also had a mess of papers on his desk with some even posted to the wall. I opened the vents beneath the window to see if he stashed anything there. Pencils and a single red marker was what I saw.

My mind was left to wander and for some reason, it went into the area of death and what happens after. I wondered how death felt and if people would really care if I did die. My thoughts walked into darkness and suddenly stumbled into suicidal thoughts. I grappled with how people are even motivated to deal with suffering and why they don’t just choose to die. How do people have the spirit inside them to even live? because that spirit had left me long ago. I felt so empty because that spirit had left me.

I was pulled away from my room by the sound of the footsteps and chatter. The other patients had come back, along with some visitors. My dad, a large man with tousled graying hair and my bag in his hand was with that group. I walked up to him and helped him with the paperwork that we had to fill out for my stuff. We were then ushered into one of the day rooms.

“How have you been holding up here?”

“Okay I guess. Is mom doing better?”

“Not really”

“And Harry”

“Of what I can see, She is just concerned about you and wants you to feel better.”

We continued small talk like this for what felt like forever. My dad, who was usually sure of himself, seemed not to know how to act. One moment, he was touching me as if to comfort me. The next, his whole demeanor would turn cold. I think that he was trying to hide his shock at this situation and to act like a man. It was something that I could not comprehend.

After a half hour, I was released from the uncomfortable chatter, which had made me feel emptier. I walked over to the other day room. Most of the other patients were there, either playing a game like apples to apples and/or scrabble or watching the Tele. However, while I was there, I just sat there because I just felt so overwhelmed with what I felt and I could not talk. I can’t remember what was on when I walked in, but when the clock struck seven, the channel was changed. A show about murder mysteries appeared. Sherlock came out of the blue and told us after only a few minutes that it was an inside job and who directly caused it then left.

“He always does that,” said Bill. I was not very familiar with him, but he had these shocking blue eyes.

Later, I was forced into a shower by one of the staff. It was almost painful.  The water came down in one pressurized stream and it could not decide if it wanted to be boiling hot or frigid. When I came out, my body was bright red. I saw why everyone always complained about the conditions surrounding us.

After a hour or so, everyone was ushered back into their rooms for lights out… at 9 pm. It made sense that Sherlock was awake for so long. There was so much I wanted to talk to him about.

“Well, today was interesting,” I said.

“Maybe for you, but for me, it was dull. It, of course, always is.”

“Well, does anything change around here?”

“Some of the groups change. The schedule changes on weekends. People enter and leave. There are also the parent meetings.”

“How did your parent meeting go Sherlock?”

“Terribly,” Sherlock said pointedly. “I had to tell my parents about my ‘emotions’ and I started yelling. My parents were considerably upset. They don’t understand because they are normal”

“Your parents are normal?”

“It is unfortunately true. They call me Sherl and I hate it. They also do boring things.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Just one. His name is Mycroft. He worries about me constantly, which is annoying. He is even smarter than I. Mycroft is in uni now and will come home and visit me tomorrow. What about your family?”

“They are normal too. My mother worries about me and is fragile. My dad is controlling. My sister and I don’t get along. She is a lesbian.”

Sherlock looked at me when I said this. His expression softened.

“Why didn’t you mention that Philip actually admires you to some extent?” I added, thinking it was a good time to confront him about it.

“I hate it that he does and I did not want to tell you that. Though, this is one of the rare instances that I actually feel denial, so don’t make any assumptions.”

“Okay none made.”

“You know, it’s okay to have emotions. Yes, I get that you are smart and logical and all, but everyone feels. You can even talk to me.”

“I am tired now, so some silence would be marvelous,” he grumbled. Jesus, I understood why he bullshitted me, but I wish he would have given me a straight response.

“Oh um yeah. Goodnight.”

And then I fell again, into the darkness of the night and then my mind. I could not sleep, but that was nothing new. I wished that someone would trust me and then I could trust them back.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

I woke with a start the next morning due to the seemingly blinding light of the hallway when the door was open. One of the nurses had come to wake us up. There was this one second in which I thought I was home, but then I realized I was here and then my mind started to race with anxious and angry and empty thoughts. I had felt too energized that morning. My body needed to move at all times.    

There were two new people at breakfast. One was a girl with curly, black hair and olive colored skin. The other was a guy with dark eyes and a buzz cut.

“Hey,” I said to the new guy.

 “Oh Hey,” he responded

 “What’s your name?”

 “Greg. Yours?”

 “It’s John.”

 “Hey, is it like as bad as you would think it to be here?”

 "Well, it depends on your specific situation. Who is your roommate?”

 “Billy.”

 “Lucky you. Mine is a bit of an inhuman prick, but a genius. Speak of the devil,” I spoke as he walked into the room.

 “Suicide? Both of you? For God’s Sake,” he mumbled. Everyone else ignored him.

 “Jesus, you’ve got it bad. How long have you been here?” Greg said.

“A day.”

 “What else goes on around here?”

 “Well, as you can taste, the food is terrible. The showers are sometimes painful. Sometimes, people do crazy shit-”

 “Watch the language,” said a staff member. I sighed.

 “And some of the staff can be pricks,” I finished with a softer tone.

Sally ran out of the room suddenly. A nurse saw this and quickly unlocked the bathroom door.

 “What’s up with her?” Greg asked.

 “She’s pregnant,” Sherlock said automatically.

 "What?” I said.

 “Yeah. You didn’t know?”

 “No. it never really came up yesterday when I was around her.”

I had gotten some stares after that last comment. I didn’t exactly know what to look for in a pregnant woman. I had just thought that she just had a muffin top.

The morning meeting then started after the bulky plastic chairs were arranged correctly around the room. Everyone went around and shared. Some had the same goal, like Sherlock. Others made different ones.

“To start here well,” said Greg.

 “I want to reorganize my part of the room,” Anderson said twitching ever so slightly.

I was last again and I thought of a new goal.

 “To be more expressive." 

Music was after the Morning Meeting. My group had to put on shoes to go outside the unit. Spending that day without shoes made me miss them and value them. When we found our way to the small music room, we each got a turn on the drums, learning different rhythm. I had loved it. There was extra time at the end, so the leader had asked if anyone knew anything on the piano. One of the girls played The Office theme song.

I had to sit through the first part of a history presentation in school. It only made me nervous for what was minutes away.

My parent meeting finally came. My thoughts seemed like birds in the sky, flying towards the east. They flew so high and fast that I could not catch them.

The door of the room next to the one I was admitted in was opened. My mother looked shaky and my father was stone cold I sat in the chair provided. Ella started the meeting.

 “John, please tell your parents as much of what you feel comfortable sharing about your feelings,” she prompted.

 “Well, I have been feeling depressed for the past ten months or so. I don’t know exactly how or why it happened; it just did. I have been feeling suicidal for the last three of those months. I started to develop a plan a week ago because I felt so overwhelmed and obviously it failed.”

“Why didn’t you tell us John?" 

“Because I told myself that I wanted, I wanted to protect you. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do about my thoughts even though they were too much for me to handle. I thought that I would become even more of a burden to the family. My mind blocked me from even getting the words out.”  

“Can you please share what things in your life influenced your depression?”

“I think that just all the stress in my life did it for me. School stress. Issues with my friends. And most of all, family issues.”

“What did we do to hurt you John? We only want the best for you,” retorted my father.

“Excuse me for not submitting to your plan for my feelings. I am so sick of you telling me what I should do with my life and who I am.” I stand up. “I am my own fucking person so please get the hell out if you don’t support that.”

 “No,” my dad said. ”and do not use that language around us.” My mother started to sob. I was about to lose it.

 “John, please sit down. Now please, everyone calm down” Ella said with a neutral expression. “John, please explain why you feel this way.’

 “You refused to respect Harry as a lesbian, which is bullshit because she is a good person. O sorry, I forgot you wanted calmer language. BS.  Also, you want me to get a job just so that you can whatever you want with the money, which made the family unstable financially. You and mom constantly fight, putting me, and sometimes Harry, in the middle. You manipulate me to always see your point of view, so can you just stop.”

 “John, can you step out of the room for a second so that I can talk to your parents alone.”

 “Fine.”

Then, I just waited in the hallway so that she could talk to my parents about my feelings. My psychiatrist saw me there and motioned me into the room I was admitted in so that we could talk.

 “How is your parent meeting going?”

 “Terribly. My parents are not responding to anything that I am saying in a constructive way. It is making me really angry.”

“Well, if you want advice, just stay calm. You can’t change them, only yourself,” she said. “Have you been feeling any side effects or changes?”

 “I have been feeling very energized and it is harder for me to think straight.”

 “Okay, we need to first change the time of day when you take your medication to the morning, which will have to start tomorrow. It is no big deal and nothing you should worry about.”

 “Um thanks. I had better be getting back,” I said as I noticed Ella outside the room.

As I reentered the room that the meeting was happening in, I could see the tears on my mother’s face and the softened face of my father. At the sight of them, I started to soften.

 “John, I just asked your parents how they were feeling in response to what you said.”

 “We have realized what we have done wrong. We will do our best to see to it that you are less stressed. We love you so much John and don’t want you to forget that,” said my mother, who mustered up her strength to say that. I had become somewhat suspicious. What she had said seem too good to be true.

 “Thank you.”

 “Do you all need a couple of minutes to talk privately?”

 “No, it’s okay.” Then, I faced my parents, “I am okay here and can you please not visit me tonight.”

 “Okay,” responded my dad. My parents both hugged me and left.

Then I went to my next group, anger management, which had already been going for twenty minutes.

“We just discussed this composition about anger and now, we are filling out this sheet about anger,” said the group leader, handing me both the papers.

I had to pull in a clunky green plastic chair from the day room across the hall. Sherlock looked up at me as I reentered; only this time, he had softer eyes. It seemed as if they wanted not just to observe, but to truly see.

I then looked at my worksheet it asked what people or things make me angry and if and/or what I could do about that anger. Luckily, I was still feeling expressive after that family meeting. After five minutes, everyone had to go around and say what they wrote. Philip was asked to start.

 “In general, I have a short temper and build up anger easily. No one specifically makes me angry, disorder and mess do. I think that I can manage my anger better using coping skills and talking things out.”

 “Good.”

 “I am angry at my boyfriend for being an idiot and my parents for kicking me out without understanding how I was feeling. I should be patient with them and try to be expressive with them,” Sally said after Philip went. More people went after her.

 "Sherlock?”

 “I am angry at people.”

  “Coping skill?” the leader said, seeing that asking him why he was angry at people would be useless and offensive.

 “Not to be bored.”

More people went in between us.

 “I am angry because I am not heard. I guess my coping skill would just to, um be expressive,” I said, looking down.

“Good John. And Greg?”

 “I am just so mad at the world right now.”

 “What about the world is making you angry right now?”

“It is just so unfair that some lives are more tragic than others. Sure, this is nothing new, but it still sucks. How do I have to deal with two family deaths in the past year when there are people our age that just can be lazy and don’t have to deal with this suffering?” Greg said. I was surprised at how calm he was when reading off his paper. He had seemed to hold in and metabolize those feelings for a long time.

 “Everyone has to deal with suffering Greg. Some just have to deal with it more than others.”

“I know that, but I feel like I can be angry about it. I just have to deal with my anger so that it doesn’t hurt me.”

We ended early, so we had ten minutes of free time. Sherlock went back to our room, but I stayed in the day room. There was this water/ice machine and a lot of people were having cups of ice chips. I decided to try them and it was strangely satisfying to just bite into them. Then the lunch cart came and I realized that there was cake in the lunch. It was not half bad. I talked to Greg at lunch.

“Parent meeting go badly?” Sherlock said in the middle of reading his book.

“Yeah kind of,” I said. “I blew up in front of them in the first part of the meeting and had to leave the room for a ‘couple of minutes’, but after that, everything seemed fixed.”

"That was a bad parent meeting. You will probably not move up to purple for the maximum time.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. That did not seem very fair since my emotions were repressed. “So do you know what this medication group that we have next is?”

“I am presuming that the nurse comes to talk to us about the medication we are on, but I have never been. I’ve only been here for three days.”

“So you’re going to move up to purple tomorrow yeah?”

“Yup.”

“Hmm. What do you think of Greg?”

“New guy?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s okay I guess. Boring like the rest of ‘em.”

“Is there anything that isn’t boring to you?”

“Well, I like stuff that involves crime and deductions, but mostly murder.”

 “Murder?”

"Yeah, I like solving them, especially weird ones.” Sherlock beamed. I had never seen him do that before. “When I am out and not high, I sneak around the crime scenes and it’s awesome.”

“You’ve never been seen?" 

“I don’t think so. I am pretty good at hiding,” he grinned, looking at me the same way that he did during anger management. My mind stopped working for a second, and then it thought at the speed of light. I couldn’t pin down what I was feeling, but it was new to me.  

A staff member then appeared to show us to a day room. There, the nurse started to lecture us on all the different groups of psychotropic drugs and how we should work with them so that we could feel better.

“So SSRIs can make you drowsy, dizzy, nauseous-”

“No.”  

“What is it now Sherlock?”

“Most medications can make you feel dizzy. It should be expected as a side effect anyway.”

The nurse rolled her eyes at this and continued.

I moved mindlessly through the tea and snack line and into social worker group. Greg came with us.

During our social worker group, we talked about what we had in mind for the future, which mostly meant what job we thought we might have. At first, we, as we usually did in the ward, went around and just said what we thought based on the topic.

“I want to be a part of the police in one form or another,” Greg started.

“Detective.”

“Gardener.”

“A scientist of some sort.”

“Maybe a writer or an artist.”

“A pastry chef.”

“I don’t know.” slipped out of my mouth when it was my turn. Ella shot me a concerned look. I knew that I probably should have just lied.

 I then fell again into my own bottomless pit of darkness. My future felt distant and untouchable. How could I have dreams and goals when I felt that way? How could anyone else for that matter? I couldn’t focus for the rest of the group.

I grabbed my journal after it ended. When I wrote, I saw that I just didn’t feel human anymore. Things like hope, purpose, and love had escaped me long ago. There was nothing and no one for me to cling on to keep me alive. I felt like I shouldn’t have been alive anymore because I lost those basic human qualities, or so I thought. Everything human had died in me already, so why live anymore? A little bit after I started writing, Greg walked in a long with the new girl, whose name was Janine, to work on the level change paper work. We talked as Greg and she worked and I wrote. It was nice having a normalish people to talk to. My dark feelings had started to fade.

The AM came suddenly. I had, of course, completed my goal and Sherlock had not. Nothing was new.

I watched and sometimes played ping pong after the meeting just because I felt like I had to. Greg was more into it than I and was very occupied by it. I quietly slipped to my room just to listen to Sherlock play. Everything else vanished and I felt at home there.

Dinner came and passed. We walked throughout the ward and eventually out into the cold. One of the staff members had to open the gate and then we went into the building where the gym was. I had overheard others saying that it was the long term teen unit. Most of them didn’t pay attention to us, but there was this girl with short blond hair and a guy with large brown eyes who just looked at me in passing. I did not understand why.

The gym was simple and hot. There was hardly anything to do. At first, I just sat on the side. Some of the other patients say me and invited me into their passing circle. I passed a small circle of girls that were talking.

“So have you guys like watched porn before?”

I tried to erase that from my brain, but it was like someone super glued it to my brain. I looked around and finally in Sherlock’s direction. He looked like he was praying or being spiritual, but what I saw was an impossibility. He was just thinking. My thoughts took over as I walked and suddenly I stopped and my hands were touching an old ball.

We left twenty minutes later. As we walked outside, I embraced the cold, but then it seemed to have touched and pried at my soul. It let itself in and made its nest there. My head turned to look behind me to see Sherlock stop his stare in my direction. I felt tempted to slow down to talk to him, but something, some thought, stopped me.

“John, you have a call,” one of the staff members.

I got up from the game that I was playing. As I walked past the other day room, I took a look at Sherlock’s family. His parents did look normal and even touched him much to his agitation. Mycroft sat across from Sherlock. He didn’t look like he was inconvenienced and had better things to do, which was probably why he was staring at Greg and his parents across the room. I was a little bit confused, especially if Mycroft hid his emotions like Sherlock.

 

I finished walking over to the phone and the staff member connected me to the call. 

“John?”

“Harry?”

“Are you okay there?”

“Yeah, well at least I am right now,” I lied. “Where are you calling me from?”

“I am staying at my girlfriend’s house tonight, but it’s just been tough lately. Don’t worry about it.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah it does. So what is it like in the loony bin? Are people there really crazy?”

“No, it isn’t as bad as you would expect. No one is trying to hurt anyone else. People here just have some problems. It’s not like they don’t have a lack of sense. Some are… different, especially my roommate and this guy called Philip.”

“What the hell does your roommate do?”

“Well, he is arrogant and calls himself a high functioning sociopath. The two things that don’t bore him are drugs and ‘deductions’, particularly about murder, but don’t worry about me. He is actually kind of nice to me.”

“Wow John. Crazy just makes more crazy. It is a slippery slope to fall down.”

“Oy, shut up. I made another friend too, who is much more normal. He just came today and I don’t think he’ll be here for awhile. He seems pretty happy.”

“Don’t be so defensive. It makes you sound guilty. So how did your meeting today go?”

“I blew up and made mom cry, but I did get somewhere with them.”

“That’s good. Listen, I have to go now so good luck.”

“Ditto, talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

After I put down the phone, my soul felt like it was caving in and vanishing.  There was no reason for it, which made it hurt more. I automatically moved myself back into the plastic chair, grabbing my ice chips and munching on them. My whole consciousness hit a wall for two and a half hours. I did not move until I was ushered into the bathroom for a shower, which only made my own mental pain real. No one in the day room really noticed.

Lights out came an eternity later. Not a second after I flopped into my bed, Sherlock had saw that I wasn’t feeling well mentally. I knew that he didn’t know what to say, so the night was silent. We both didn’t sleep for hours. I yearned for a conversation with him or some other sort of stimulation. I needed to fall apart with him, but we were too scared to disturb the still night.

 


End file.
